Comey Says House Committees Mostly Asked About Clinton Email Probe

Seventy-five percent would make Trump easily one of the most popular leaders on the planet

"We had more questions than we had time", said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Comey was in charge of both of those investigations. "Force him to answer the questions under oath!"

Comey, according to Issa, also appeared to be gleeful about following those instructions. Earlier in the day, Congressman Darrell Issasaid there were a number of questions Comey was prevented from answering.

"He answered the questions he had to answer", said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of IL. They argued that a closed hearing was 'abusive to witnesses'. But he added that he was left with the impression that "we got nowhere today".

Democrats, who will also attend the interview, have said the GOP investigation is merely a way to distract from and undermine special counsel Robert Mueller's Russian Federation probe.

Florida Democrat Ted Deutsch said Friday the Republican majority "wishes to only ask questions still about Hillary Clinton's emails, all to distract from the big news today, which is what's happening in court" - a reference to memos that are expected to be brought down Friday as part of Mueller's investigation into allegations of co-operation between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and foreign individuals and entities, specifically Russian Federation. He had argued that Republicans would selectively leak details from the interview. That session will likely be conducted the same way, in private. He said her actions were extremely careless but did not rise to a criminally prosecutable offense. This is a term that he began using shortly after Democrats reclaimed the House of Representatives in November. Republicans were able to hold onto their majority in the Senate.

"It's a waste of time to start with and there's nothing", said Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). "The entire goal of this investigation is to cast dispersion on the real investigation (by) Robert Mueller. There is no evidence of bias at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and this other nonsense they are talking about", the Democrat claimed. Two other Republicans, Reps.

In addition to Comey's ouster four years into a 10-year term, Trump helped orchestrate the removal from the bureau of Andrew McCabe, who was interim director when Comey was sacked. He has since become a vocal critic of the president and has periodically opined on the ongoing investigation against him. The Justice Department's probe is still going, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Issa added that Comey complied with "gleeful acceptance", saying, "The Department of Justice is going to have to agree to allow him to come back and answer a great many questions that now he is not answering".

Comey appeared for the interview after unsuccessfully fighting a subpoena in court. House Republicans rejected the idea of a public hearing because they planned to go over classified information.

Comey agreed Sunday to testify after reaching a deal with Republicans to ensure a transcript of the full testimony would be made available to the public after the hearing.

But Comey relented to the closed-door interview after gaining a promise that a transcript of the session would be released to the public after 24 hours.

Comey had already testified during a almost three-hour hearing in June 2017.